How to Fix Your Slice

We all know someone, or maybe we are that someone, who cannot help but send ball after ball off of the course and into the water, the trees, the tall rough or some other place where we suddenly find ourselves saying the heck with that ball and just grabbing another out of the golf bag. It saves time and it saves face to some extent if we don’t hold up the rest of the golfers looking for that ball.

What it doesn’t do is save us any money and it sure doesn’t help our score. So we grumble to ourselves, pull out another ball, and hope we manage to somehow stay at least slightly on course. In order to solve our problem we are going to have to fix our swing….no more slice.

Fix Your Slice by Swinging Inside-Out

So, is there a sure fire way to take care of the problem. Every golfer has heard that a seemingly simple inside-out swing will stop the slice and keep that ball in play. We all know it; it’s not supposed to be that hard, and, yet, for those who have this dilemma it just does not seem to click. Of course, there is a way to learn this and make it a new golfing behavior so that you simply will not continue to swing and send that ball on some kind of nightmarish hooked flight that belongs in a sitcom about some poor guy trying to impress his new boss when he has never been on a golf course in his life.

The Easy Way to Learn to Swing Inside-Out

While learning to swing inside-out can be frustrating and for every person you meet there will seem to be yet another bit of advice about how to make it happen, there really are only two basic things to focus on when trying to make the correct swing. Either you can focus on fixing whatever it is the body is doing wrong, such as drop your shoulder, straighten your elbow and reposition your foot or you can focus on the club itself and think something like at the top of the swing the club need s to point toward the right of the target.

On the one hand we have a focus on ourselves and how we move our bodies which we call an internal cue; while on the other hand we have an external cue or a focus on an object outside of ourselves which in this case is the golf club. Studies have shown time after time that learning in sports is best done with external cues.

So, how does all of this apply to fixing my slice which by-the-way is costing me a small fortune in golf balls and a little bit of embarrassment every time I venture out for a weekend foursome? It’s really rather simple.

In order to learn the inside-out swing and really master it so that you can repeatedly use it in your golf game you should focus on the external cue. That is, focus on the club itself. Stop thinking drop the shoulder, loosen the grip align my feet and so on and start making sure the club follows the correct path and strikes the ball where it should. Focus on swinging the club from seven to one o’clock.

Use guides that you have to swing between and not hit or some other trick to make sure the club follows the correct path. Interestingly, in reality following the club and keeping it on course is really no different than telling your body to move this way or that. By removing the self-conscious focus on one’s own body a player can more effectively learn and retain the skills needed to improve the swing and master the inside-out shot.

Hit a Hook, Fix Your Slice

Sometimes a fellow golfer will suggest you try to hit a hook or that you try to send the ball into right field. This is the same advice really. It focuses on how the club moves in order to hit the ball. Continuing to learn or to improve one’s swing by focusing more on the club’s correct path or the correct angle at which it hits the ball will in turn force the golfer into the correct form with almost no thought at all as to how the body is moving, aligned or positioned.

Taking away the need to fidget with one’s own feet and hips and limbs allows for an outer focus on the club and the game which seems to help a player become more capable of repeating corrected swings on consecutive golf outings.

In the end the improved swing allows for an improved shot. More distance some added roll toward the green and better velocity are all more easily achieved once the inside-out swing has been perfected and is easily repeated as needed during each gold outing.